“Attempts must be made to modify the institutions (legal, political, social, economic) with the objective of matching these more closely with the empirical realities of man’s moral limitations.”
James Buchanan What Should Economists Do?
“Armen Alchain once made a very important comment. He said, ‘You know, there is one thing you can trust everybody to do. You can trust everybody to put his interest above yours.’”
Milton Friedman “Economic Freedom, Human Freedom, Political Freedom.” (Inaugural address of The Smith Center November 1 1991”
“We must take human nature as we find it. Perfection falls not to the share of mortals.”
George Washington to John Jay August 8, 1786, in W.B. Allen Washington, George. A Collection.
“Most people most of the time find it impossible to argue for any sustained period against their own manifest best interests.”
William C. Mitchell and Randy T. Simmons Beyond Politics: Markets, Welfare, and the Failure of Bureaucracy
In my latest Loonie Politics column I give thanks that Canada is blessed with sages capable of devising the brilliantly original solution to our health care crisis of spending tons more cash from Ottawa’s magic money tree.
In my latest National Post column I say the outrageous way the Chinese government speaks about the outrageous things it does is a red flag about the outrageous way it thinks.
“In their political arrangements, men have no right to put the well-being of the present generation wholly out of the question. Perhaps the only moral trust with any certainty in our hands is the care of our own time. With regard to futurity, we are to treat it like a ward. We are not so to attempt an improvement of his fortune as to put the capital of his estate at risk.”
Edmund Burke An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the Finance Minister is not plotting to steal our savings, just proclaiming her intention to do something so hopelessly confused not even she knows what it is.